Behold…the new platform at the WTC station. This project, a decade in the making, is truly world class leadership in a transit station design. Let’s go over the highlights:
- Expensive and functionally useless mezzanine level……Check!
- Long walkway through the station…..Check!
- Kitschy public art displays…..Check!
- Support columns plonked directly in front of stairs and escalators….Check and Check!
- Low hang ceiling above platform…..Check!
- Dangerously narrow platform spaces…..Check!
Bravo Port Authority. Your clever design will surely be replicated all over the country.
Systemic Failure 
Hope Path doesn’t ever want to buy a train set that’s a few inches taller, that’s a tight squeeze. Also hope no one ever wants to walk on the platform with a large bag, going to knock someone in front of a train.
That looks as cramped as the oldest London tube stations. If they were going for victorian dimensions why didn’t they go for a steam punk victorian futurism look with copper pipes and excessive rivets? As it is the close quarters and blinding white color scheme makes me feel like I have been institutionalized.
And those photos are the public relations “beauty” shots from Getty Images.
This is actually more cramped than the temporary station. What a total fail.
Omigod.
I just realized that the design, as constructed, is an ADA violation. There’s a tactile edge to the platform, but there isn’t a *visual high-contrast* edge.
(Yes, there’s a reason new platforms have bright yellow lines or bright yellow tactile tiles.)
Geez.
For me as a European, that station looks like a mixture of brand new and very old-fashioned elements. For example, the signage completely lacks large pictograms which would be unthinkable in most parts of Europe, maybe except for Russia. On the platform, there seems to be little information for the passenger, like real-time departure boards.